Demand for Child Victims
Donna M. Hughes
Professor & Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair
Women’s Studies Program
University of Rhode Island
Myths and Realities Concerning Child Trafficking
Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies
Brussels
December 1 and 2, 2004
1
Introduction
Over the past decade, most of the analyses of the causes of sex trafficking have focused on
factors in the sending countries. And efforts to combat trafficking have aimed to stop
trafficking on the supply side through education and prevention campaigns in sending
countries to alert people about the phenomenon of trafficking. In comparison, there have
been few campaigns or efforts aimed at reducing the demand for victims.
The movement to abolish trafficking and sexual exploitation needs a more comprehensive
approach, one that includes analyses of the demand side of trafficking, and develops
practices to combat the demand.1
What Is the Demand?
The demand for victims to be used for commercial sex acts can be divided into four
components.
1) Men: The first factor is the men who seek out children for the purpose of purchasing sex
acts. The purchasers of sex acts are the primary actors and constitute the primary level of the
demand. Without them making the decision to buy sex acts, prostitution would not exist.
2) Profiteers: The second factor or level of demand is the profiteers in the sex industries.
They include the traffickers, pimps, brothel owners, and supporting corrupt officials who
make money from sex trafficking and prostitution. They make a profit by supplying victims
to meet the demand created by men. They have vested economic interests in maintaining the
flow of children from sending to receiving countries. They are criminals and often members
of transnational organized crime networks.
3) The State: There are a number of ways that the state contributes to or accommodates the
demand for victims. We need to analyze the destination countries’ laws and policies.
Officials in destination countries do not want to admit responsibility for the problem of sex
trafficking or be held accountable for creating the demand.
a) Visa rules for entertainers that are used by traffickers.
b) Asylum processes, especially for unaccompanied minors has been a way that
traffickers have brought children into a country where they are later exploited.
c) By tolerating or legalizing prostitution, the state, at least passively, is contributing
to the demand for victims. The more states regulate prostitution and derive tax
revenue from it, the more actively they become part of the demand for victims. In
destination countries, strategies are devised to protect the sex industries that generate
hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the state where prostitution is legal, or for
organized crime groups and corrupt officials where the sex industry is illegal.
1
Donna M. Hughes, “The 2002 Trafficking in Persons Report: Lost Opportunity for Progress,” Foreign
Government Complicity in Human Trafficking: A Review of the State Department’s 2002 Trafficking in
Persons Report, House Committee on International Relations, Wednesday, June 19, 2002.
2
In the destination countries, exploiters exert pressure on the lawmakers and officials
to create conditions that allow them to operate. They use power and influence to
shape laws and polices that maintain the flow of women to their sex industries.
There has been a global movement to normalize and legalize the flow of foreign
women into sex industries. It involves a shift from opposing the exploitation of
women in prostitution to only opposing the worst violence and criminality. It involves
legalizing prostitution, and changing the migration laws to allow a flow of women for
prostitution from sending regions to sex industry centers. The normalization of
prostitution is often recommended as a way to solve the problem of trafficking.
4) The Culture: The fourth factor is the culture that indirectly creates a demand for victims
by sexualizing children and normalizing prostitution. Media depictions of prostitution and
other commercial sex acts, such as stripping and lap dancing, that romanticize or glamorize
these activities influence public knowledge and opinions about the sex trade. Women and
girls’ behavior is often considered to be the sole cause of prostitution. Their imagined
experiences and motivations are represented in countless novels and movies. These images
often suggest that prostitution is a victimless crime or sad, but necessary life for some
children. Individual writers, academics, and groups advocating the idea that prostitution is a
form of work for women claim that providing sexual services can be an empowering for
women. Over the past decade, we have seen in increase in the term “child sex worker,” as if
children are workers in the sex trade. Terms like this overlook the violence and victimization
involved, or suggest that more empowerment is the solution to exploitation and abuse of
victims of the global sex trade.
In places where women and girls or certain ethnicities or classes of women and girls are
devalued, there is more acceptance of the exploitation of a female relative in prostitution to
financially support the family.
The Men
Men who purchase sex acts have for the most part remained invisible and anonymous in the
universal consciousness on prostitution. They are “faceless and nameless.”2 Men who solicit
and buy sex acts are often called “customers,” “clients,” and “consumers.” These terms
normalize men’s behavior. We need to refer to them as criminals, perpetrators, predators,
child molesters, child rapists, or something more precise that does not normalize their
activities and instead conveys the harm they are doing to children. The focus on the demand
requires that we consider men’s responsibility for the existence and continuation of
prostitution, and how they create the demand for women and particularly children to be used
in prostitution.
Although some men specifically seek out children for sex, in most commercial sex
establishments, there is no evidence that men distinguish between women and children or
2
Cecilie Høigård and Liv Finstad, Backstreets: Prostitution, Money and Love, University Park, Pennsylvania:
The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986, p. 25.
3
those who are victims of trafficking and those who are not. Whether or not the victim is a
woman or child that is being compelled to engage in prostitution seems to be irrelevant to
men when they purchase sex acts.
Therefore, in researching the demand for commercial sex acts, is it not possible to distinguish
between men’s demand for victims of sex trafficking from men’s demand for commercial sex
acts.3
How Many Men Purchase Sex Acts?
There is little research on how many men or what percentage of the male population
purchase sex acts. It is difficult to compare statistics from one country to another or from one
survey to the next because of different methods used to collect data and different definitions
used. The few studies that are available indicate that the percentage of men who purchase sex
acts varies widely among countries and cultures.
A recent pilot study interviewed men, some of whom had experience with purchasing sex
acts, in Denmark, Thailand, India, and Italy. They found significant cross—national
differences with regard to the extent and nature of social acceptance for men to buy sex. For
example, Danish men said they never experienced social pressure to buy sex, and disagreed
with the idea that purchasing sex was a mark of virility or masculinity. In contrast, the Thai
men said that purchasing sex acts was a normal masculine behavior.
More research is needed to determine the approximate number and proportion of men in
different countries who purchase sex acts, with a special focus on cultural differences on
acceptance of purchasing sex acts. Research is also needed on what deters men from
purchasing sex acts. For example, in some countries fewer men purchase sex acts with less
frequency than in other countries. Can this be attributed to the criminalization of soliciting
sex acts? The role of law in setting social norms needs to be explored.
Behaviors and Attitudes of Purchasers of Sex Acts
Men who purchase sex acts are all ages and come from all socioeconomic levels, all
occupations categories, and ethnic/racial groups.4 Their behavior to buy a sex act is voluntary
behavior and a choice. 5
Most of the information is based on surveys of and interviews with men who have been
arrested for soliciting commercial sex acts or who self-report that they purchase sex acts.
For purposes of this report, the term “commercial sex act” will mean any sex act on account of which anything
of value is given to or received by traffickers, exploiters or purchasers, either directly or indirectly, for sexual
acts or practices performed by victims of commercial sex acts.
4
M. Alexis Kennedy, Boris B. Gorzalka, John C. Yuille, “Men Who Solicit Prostitutes: A Demographic Profile
of Participants in the Prostitution Offender Program of British Columbia,” Prepared for the Vancouver Police
Department and the John Howard Society of Lower Mainland, February 2004.
3
4
Over the past decade, programs for men arrested for soliciting commercial sex acts have
created samples of men who could be surveyed about their attitudes and behaviors.
There is one behavior of men that is rarely covered in surveys and rarely reported by men:
acts of violence against prostitutes. Men do not usually voluntarily admit to committing
violent crimes. Most researchers do not ask the men questions about violent behavior, instead
they ask questions that are more sympathetic to men’s motivations and decision to purchase
sex acts.
Women’s Reports of Men’s Violence
Women and children in prostitution are subjected to high rates of violence and abuse from
the men who pay them for sex acts. In some men’s minds, the act of paying money entitles
them to do whatever they want to a woman or child.
Research findings from the last 25 years have consistently documented the high incidence of
battery and sexual assault against women in prostitution by the men who buy them. “Certain
customers commit some of society’s most vile crimes through their abuse of prostitutes.”6
In the early 1980s, a study of 200 women and girls in street prostitution, most of whom were
minors (70% were under 21, almost 60% were 16 or under, and numbers were 10 and 11
years old), in the San Francisco area found that 70 percent of them had been raped or
sexually assaulted by a man an average of 31 times, and 65 percent of them had been
physically abused or beaten by men an average of 4 times. According to the women and girls
perceptions of why men beat or raped them: 40 percent said the men “got off on it, enjoyed
it, and thought it was part of sex;” 32 percent said it was because the men couldn’t or didn’t
want to pay the money promised; and 16 percent said it was because the men hated
prostitutes or hated women in general. Forty-six percent said the beatings were arbitrary –
“no specific reason, just crazy, that’s how they are” – and eight percent said they did not
know the reason. More than 75 percent of the victims said there was nothing they could do
about the men’s abuse.7
There are also reports from Asian countries, particularly Cambodia, of the sale of virgin girls
to men who can afford them.8 9
It is not known what proportion of men who purchase sex acts commits acts of violence
against women and children. It is likely that a minority of the men commit most of the acts of
violence. Prostitutes are considered to be population that can be violated with impunity, and
violent perpetrators seek them out knowing they are unlikely to be apprehended.
The exception might be teenage boys who are taken to prostitutes by friends or relatives for a “first time”
experience.
6
Erbe, August 1984, p. 610.
7
Mimi H. Silbert and Ayala M. Pines, “Occupational Hazards of Street Prostitutes,” Criminal Justice and
Behavior, Vol. 8, No. 4, December 1981, pp. 395-399.
8
Joe Cochrane, “Virgins for sale to AIDS-wary men,” Australasian Business Intelligence, November 10, 1999.
9
“Child prostitutes make tearful plea, Hong Kong Standard, 30 November 1998.
5
5
All research findings conclude that men who purchase commercial sex acts are not a
homogenous group of men. They have a range of motives, behaviors, and attitudes about
prostitution.
Age of Men When They First Purchased a Sex Act
The age at which men first purchased a sex act varies widely, but for most, they were young
men. Based on a sample of men arrested for soliciting a prostitute, the average age when they
first purchased a sex act was 24 (with a median of 21); the range was from nine to 62.10
Another survey found the range of when men first purchased a sex act to be from 12 to 57,
with an average of 27.11 These findings were typical for all the surveys of men arrested for
soliciting a sex act in the United States and Canada.
A Norwegian study interviewed sailors who had purchased sex acts. All of them
reported that they had purchased sex for the first time when they were teenagers. For
the most part, they copied older men’s behavior. For them, engaging in sex with a
prostitute was a ritual and passage into manhood that the older men arranged for the
young sailors.12 A noted minority said that they did not want to participate, but were
forced into it by the older men.
It is not known how the age at which a man first purchases a sex act influences his
subsequent behavior. Nor is the impact on men and boys of being forced into a commercial
sex act known.
Frequency of Purchasing Sex Acts
Among men arrested for soliciting or who self-report that they purchase sex acts, there is a
considerable range on how often men purchase sex acts. There are indications from research
findings that a subgroup of men, who are “hard core, habitual” users, may account for a
disproportionately high percentage of the demand for commercial sex acts.
Sven-Axel Månsson in Sweden compared what he called “occasional buyers” – “men who
buy sex on a few occasions during their whole life course” and “habitual buyers.” He
concluded that the occasional buyers were most sensitive to legal measures, meaning they
were more likely to respect a law against purchasing sex acts. They were more worried about
public prosecution; therefore, legal measures probably have a more discouraging effect on
their behavior. The habitual buyers were relatively few in number, but accounted for a large
number of prostitute contacts.13
The Norwegian researchers concluded that it was the “habitual buyers” who sustained the
“buyer side” of the sex trade. 14 These conclusions indicate that intervention strategies
directed at habitual purchasers would significantly reduce the number of sex acts purchased.
Martin A. Monto, “Focusing on the Clients of Street Prostitutes: A Creative Approach to Reducing Violence
Against Women – Summary Report,” Report submitted to National Institute of Justice, October 30, 1999.
11
Kennedy,. Gorzalka, Yuille, February 2004.
12
Høigård and Finstad, 1986, p. 29.
13
Månsson, (forthcoming 2004)
14
Høigård and Finstad, 1986, p. 28.
10
6
Men’s Motives for Purchasing Sex Acts
A frequent assumption about why men purchase sex acts is that they are single, lonely or
have an unsatisfactory sexual relationship with their partner. Research findings from surveys
and interviews of men who purchase sex act indicate that this may be an incorrect
assumption for many men.
The majority of men surveyed or interviewed in the studies reviewed were married or had a
steady partner (57%,15 59%,16 70%17). In these studies, at least half of the men had families.
According to a U.S. study, 80 percent of the men who had been caught soliciting a sex act
said that their marriage or steady relationship was sexually satisfying. 18 Norwegian
researchers found two different types of married men who purchased sex acts. The first were
relatively young and had not been married very long. They said they were content and
pleased with themselves and their married life and sex with their wives, but wanted more
variety and excitement. The expressed “few scruples” about their behavior. They wanted
particular sex acts that they felt could only be purchased. The other group of married men
was older. They had little sexual experience before marriage. Sexual activity and intimacy
had begun to decrease in their marriage and they sought to replace it by buying sex acts. 19
A Swedish study found that “the experience of paying for sex is greatest among men with a
lot of sexual partners.”20 A U.S. study made similar findings: Men who purchased sex acts
were more likely than men who didn’t purchase sex acts to report that they had more than
one sexual partner over the past year (56 percent as compared to 19 percent).21
These finding indicates that many men who purchase sex acts do not fit the stereotype of the
lonely, sexually dissatisfied man. Nor are the majority of the men satisfied from buying a sex
act. Although men sought out prostitutes, often repeatedly, a significant portion of the men
said they were dissatisfied with the experience and wanted to stop. In one study, only a third
of men surveyed said they enjoyed sex with prostitutes, and 57 percent of them said they had
tried to stop going to prostitutes.22
Norwegian researchers identified a group of men in their research similar to the “socially
inadequate type.” They said they were mostly single men who had trouble establishing
lasting relationships with women. They are characterized by “distance, anxiety, and
15
Kennedy, Gorzalka, Yuille, February 2004.
Steven Sawyer, Michael E. Metz, Jeffrey D. Hinds, and Robert A. Brucker, “Attitudes Towards Prostitution
Among Males: A ‘Consumers’ Report,” Current Psychology: Developmental, Learning, Personality, Social,
Winter 2001-02, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp 363-376.
17
Sawyer, Rosser, and Schroeder, 1998, pp. 111-125.
18
Sawyer, Metz, Hinds, and. Brucker, Winter 2001-02, pp 363-376.
19
Høigård and Finstad, 1986, p. 33.
20
Månsson, Sven-Axel. (1998) “Commercial sexuality.” In: B. Lewin (ed.), Sex in Sweden: On the Swedish
Sexual Life, Stockholm: The National Institute of Public Health.
21
Monto, M.A. “Why men seek out prostitutes.” In: R. Weitzer (ed.), Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography
and the Sex Industry, London: Routledge, 2000.
22
Sawyer, Rosser, and Schroeder, 1998, pp. 111-125.
16
7
helplessness toward women.” Purchasing sex was a way to avoid women’s expectations and
“confrontations with their own inadequacies or failures.”23
In one study, 65 percent of men said that someone close to them, such as a wife, girlfriend,
family member, or friend, knew that they purchased sex acts, yet 71 percent of them said that
no one had ever expressed concern about their behavior. 24
It appears a significant proportion of the men is troubled by their behavior. This may indicate
that these men are amenable to change.
Analysis of Men’s Motivations, Attitudes, and Behavior
Not surprising, the more often men purchased sex acts the more likely they were to accept
the idea that sex is a commodity. 25 In addition, the more they thought that sex was a
legitimate commodity; the more they had attitudes that justified violence against women.
They conveyed their attitudes in supporting violence against women by indicating that they
agreed with rape myths (thinking that women are responsible for rapes, invite rape, and are
not hurt by rape), were attracted to violent sexuality, and refused to use condoms for
commercial sex acts. The researchers concluded that a commodified view of sexuality could
be related to lack of respect for and violence against prostitutes.26 This finding also indicates
that frequent or habitual buyers of sex acts may also be the ones committing acts of violence.
Several researchers who have conducted in-depth interviews with men who purchase sex acts
have put forth analyses that explain men’s motivations and behaviors. They emphasized that
men who purchase sex acts are a heterogeneous group. Each subgroup of men has a different
profile, motivations, and behaviors that are important to understand in order to design
different therapeutic and criminal justices responses.27
A few researchers and therapists are looking at the connections between purchasing sex acts
and using pornography. One researcher found that men who purchased sex acts are twice as
likely to have watched pornography in the past year than those from a random national
sample of men.28
A lot of research on men who purchase sex acts is rather sympathetic to the men, focusing
mainly on their self-reports of loneliness, or a need for change, variety, or excitement. Two
men who research and write about men’s demand for prostitution have more critical views of
men’s behavior and motivations.
Joe Parker, the Clinical Director at the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation in Portland has a
more critical view and analysis of men’s behavior. He says that most of the men he sees in
the john school in Portland, Oregon are married, have children, and have “a life.” He believes
23
Høigård and Finstad, 1986, p. 31.
Sawyer, Rosser, and Schroeder, 1998, pp. 111-125.
25
Monto, October 30, 1999.
26
Monto, October 30, 1999.
27
Sawyer, Metz, Hinds, and Brucker, Winter 2001-02, pp 363-376.
28
Monto, October 30, 1999.
24
8
the core motivation of men who purchase sex acts is that they do not, and do not want to,
respect women; they want control.29
“Some people do not want real relationships, or feel entitled to something beyond the
real relationships they have. …Some people do not want an equal, sharing
relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to ask. They like the
power involved in buying a human being who can be made to do almost anything.”30
He says these men do not want to have an extramarital affair with a woman because that
would require them to be nice to the woman. They want to have sex on demand in which
they do not have to be nice.
The research by Grubman Black reveals the more violent attitudes and behaviors of men who
purchase sex acts. He used a more confrontation interviewing style that uncovered more of
men’s aggressive attitudes and violent behaviors towards women. The profile of the men who
fit into over half of his categories seem most capable of committing the many acts of physical
and sexual violence that the women describe. Grubman Black’s research is less sympathetic
to the men, their motivations, and behaviors, and consequently, he identifies men’s hostile
attitudes towards women, their sense of entitlement, their callous indifference to others, and
their self-serving excuses. He concludes:
“A John is a man who believes he is entitled by virtue of his gender and money to
have sex on demand. Whether he is shy or not, whether he calls her a girlfriend or a
whore, and whether or not he abides by some set of rules or limits, he believes he can
buy for sexual use a woman’s body.”31
Clearly, men who purchase sex acts are a heterogeneous group with subgroups who have
different motivations for purchasing sex acts. Some of these findings challenge society’s
assumptions of why men purchase sex acts. A better understanding of men’s motivations to
seek out prostitutes will provide a basis for a better criminal justice response, treatment, and
rehabilitation.
Men’s Motivation to Buy Sex Acts from Children and Adolescents
A few researchers and advocates have focused on the attitudes and motivations of men who
seek out children for commercial sex acts. Although there are different national standards,
according to universal standards, when a man engages in sex with a child under the age of
18, he is committing an act of sexual abuse, whether or not it is a commercial sex act. Men
who sexually abuse children make a decision to commit criminal acts against children. The
29
Joe Parker, Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation, Portland, Oregon, March 23, 2004.
Joe Parker, “How Prostitution Works,” Lola Green Baldwin Foundation, Portland, Oregon,
http://www.prostitutionrecovery.org/how_prostitution_works.html
31
Grubman Black, October 16, 2003.
30
9
characteristics and behaviors of predators who sexually abuse children are fairly well known
and described.32 33 34
Less is known about men who buy sex acts from children. Are they similar or different from
the men who sexually abuse children they access by seducing or “grooming” the child?
An obvious difference is the amount a time a man must expend to acquire a victim. Sexual
predators often take long periods of time to “groom” children before they sexually abuse
them. A man who purchases a sex act takes no time at all to “seduce” the child; he just pays
money and has immediate sexual access. Child sex abusers who groom children must have
fairly ready access to children or take time to establish themselves in organizations,
professions, or relationships that will give them access to children. A “buyer” seeks
immediate access and instant gratification.
Also, a man who buys a sex act may think he is taking less risk with his reputation and is less
likely to be caught than someone who molests a child who might tell friends, relatives, or
authority figures. Joe Parker of the Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation thinks that men who
purchase sex acts from children are cruder and have a different sense of time than
“groomers.” They want immediacy and act more directly on what they want. Men who
purchase sex acts with children may be more overtly sadistic; they want to hurt children in
ways that leave visible damage. They are less likely to get away with such brutality with
known children. Men who want to torture, sodomize, and batter children go to pimps who
specialize in providing children who can be hurt with impunity.
Experts who have worked with both victims and offenders believe there is a link between
men’s use of adult prostitutes and their eventual use of children. Norma Hotaling, founder
and director of SAGE in San Francisco offers programs for women leaving prostitution and a
john school for men. Running the john school has given her the opportunity to talk to over
5,000 men about their motives and behaviors.
The demand in the United States is predominately for the stereotypical young, white,
blue eyed, and blond girls. … Although some children are prostituted by and/or
specifically for pedophiles and preferential abusers, the majority of the several
million men who annually exploit prostitutes under the age of 18 are first and
foremost prostitute users who become child sexual abusers through their prostitute
use, rather than the other way around. …Laws and social conventions make it
difficult and dangerous for individuals to use children for sexual purposes in noncommercial contexts, but prostitution potentially provides instant access, often to a
selection of children. … The world of prostitution, whether legal or illegal, provides
an arena where laws and rules that constrain sex with minors can be evaded. …
Kenneth V. Lanning, “Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis For Law Enforcement Officers Investigating
Cases of Child Sexual Exploitation, Third Edition,” National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
December 1992.
33
Anna C. Salter, Predators, Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate,
and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children, Basic Books: New York, New York, 2003.
34
Max Taylor and Ethel Quayle, Child Pornography: An Internet Crime, Brunner-Routledge; 2003.
32
10
Adult men who enter into prostitution bring with them very complex needs and
emotions. They attempt to satisfy those needs with young adults whom they pay
essentially lie to them. When this false intimacy proves unsatisfactory and their belief
that they have a right to service and pleasure at any cost, they progress to younger
and younger children. They use many justifications for their actions such as “they
are poor and I am feeding them,” “they keep coming back, therefore, they must like
it,” or having sex with younger children helps to prevent STDs or HIV…35
In Peru, a journalistic investigation was conducted to understand the problem of child
commercial sexual exploitation from the standpoint of the “client’s” responsibility. Save the
Children Sweden funded the research and report entitled “The Client Goes Unnoticed.” 36
The objective was to identify what factors motivate men to pay to have sex with children and
adolescents. The researchers wanted to know what the purchaser “thinks and feels,” whether
he feels remorse for what he does, and if he imagines that the child could be his own child or
grandchild. The goal of the project was to “make the client visible to society as a person
mainly responsible for the increase in the supply of children and adolescents for commercial
sex.”
The investigation was conducted in six areas of Peru (Lima, Puerto Maldonada, Cajamarca,
Ayacucho, Chiclayo, and Iquitos), in the country’s coastal, highland, and jungle regions.
Methods included direct testimony of people involved in the sex trade, including victims,
people involved in economic exploitation of the victims, authorities, and the purchasers sex
acts.
The investigators found that men in Peru are influenced by a “permissive education” that
gives men greater freedom than women in their decision-making. Men also learn to expect
that there will be “no criticism or judgment of his sexual activity.” Three major groups of
purchasers of sex acts from children and adolescents were identified:
1) Men who do not know they have a preference for children or adolescents and
discover it by accident or through the influence of the environment;
2) Men who seek and have sex with adults as well as with children and adolescents
as the opportunity presents itself;
3) Men who have a preference for child and adolescents and have sex only with this
age group.
The purchasers of sex acts from children and adolescents enjoyed the “pleasure in the taboo.”
They gave the following explanations for their behavior:
1) They wanted to reaffirm their manhood - “machismo” or masculinity
Norma Hotaling, “Increased Demand Resulting in the Flourishing Recruitment and Trafficking in Women
and Girls,” The Expert Meeting on Prevention of International Trafficking and Promotion of Public
Awareness Campaign, Seoul, Korea, September 23-24, 2003.
36
Juan Manuel Garland and Verushka Villavicencio, “The Client Goes Unnoticed.” Save the Children Sweden,
Lima, Peru, March 2004.
35
11
2) They wanted to prove to themselves and others that they could still perform
sexually
3) They wanted to exercise power and dominance over someone
4) They wanted to increase their self-esteem through the use of an “innocent,
defenseless person who is unable to question their sexual performance.”
5) They wanted greater excitement and pleasure because of the child’s small size,
trying new sensations, and experimenting with inexperienced children.
The researchers were interested in the root causes of commercial sexual exploitation of
children. They identified one of the principal factors in creating a vulnerable supply of
children as the breakdown of the nuclear family, especially where the adults have little or no
formal education, and where violence and sexual abuse are common. Although they
recognized the social and economic factors contributing to commercial sexual exploitation,
throughout their investigation, the researchers asked whether the prostitution of children and
adolescents would disappear if there were enough jobs for everyone. They concluded that
although many victims lived in poverty, the answer was “no.”
“The underlying problem is not the lack of jobs, but the increasing demand by clients
who seek this service. If there were no demand, children and adolescents would have
to find another activity.
In each city or region in Peru, the exploiters who organized the prostitution operations did so
to accommodate the types of men who purchased of sex acts. The researchers identified a
series of domestic (internal) trafficking networks and some that likely extended beyond the
Peruvian borders. In making comparisons among how prostitution operations were organized
and expanded, the researchers concluded that:
“As the network focuses on satisfying the demand for an increasingly exclusive
clientele, the criminal level becomes higher and more sophisticated. In those cases,
the system of threats used by the network to keep the adolescents from fleeing become
more violent. At this point, we find a criminal organization whose tentacles not only
have a nationwide reach, but probably also extend beyond our country’s borders.
Using another method of data collection, the researchers set up a fictitious pornographic
magazine called “Sex in the Street.” They placed advertisements seeking administrative and
creative staff for the publication. Two hundred people responded. They interviewed 130
people, and selected 85 people, aged 20 to 64, who supported sex with children, to participate
in focus groups. They facilitated a discussion among these men on their involvement in the
sexual exploitation of children, their sexual preferences, and how the magazine could best
appeal to the target audience of child sex abusers.
They found that the attributes such a magazine should have are:
1) Sexual fantasies in which the adults have sex with children under age 18. The
men suggested that each cover of the magazine should have a picture of an
12
underage girl who “is wearing really short clothes that reveal something” and
“suggests innocence and who charms with her grace.”
2) Convey dominance and power. Men preferred underage girls because they were
able to dominate them.
3) Machismo. The domination of a girl is not enough; men must be validated by
having other men see them. Many of the men see domination of a girl through
purchasing sex acts as giving them prestige or an indication that the man engaged
in this type of activity has prestige.
4) Portray girls as adults. Part of the fantasy of sex with the girls is related to a
machista fantasy, which divides women into two groups, madonnas
(mother/virgin) and prostitutes. The girl who can be purchased for sex acts falls
midway between the two, and the man has the power to control her.
5) Convey sexual prowess. Sex with underage children is a way for men to reaffirm
their masculinity by demonstrating they are still able to perform sexually.
6) Adolescents are consenting adults. The men lacked an understanding that a child
is a minor. Although Peruvian law states that a person is an adult at age 18, the
interviewees saw adolescents as being, or close to being, women.
7) Focus on men’s experience. In a commercial sex act, it is the experience of the
men that matters. The child is not considered a partner. They thought an
educational section of the magazine should include information about enjoyable
safe sex and how to avoid contracting diseases.
The researchers concluded that men creating a demand for children and adolescents for sex
acts were the driving force of the sex trade.
“[C]hildren and adolescents are … the weakest participants in a sexual marketplace
driven by adults, which will continue to expand as long as there are clients who
demand this degrading service, especially while these clients remain anonymous.”
These findings indicate that there are some men who purposefully seek out children or
adolescents for commercial sex acts because they are preferential child sex abusers or want to
cause such harm they are dependent on disposable children. There are men who frequently
purchase sex acts and, at first, indiscriminately buy a child, and eventually this leads them to
seeking children out for commercial sex on a regular basis. These advocates and researchers
all conclude that it is men’s demand for sex with minors that drives the child sex trade.
Conclusions
Men are no longer invisible in their role of perpetuating prostitution and sex trafficking. A
more comprehensive view of the global sex trade has brought the “demand” side to the
attention of activists, scholars, and officials.
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Research on men who purchase sex acts has found an array of personal and psychological
problems and criminal motives behind men’s decision to buy sex acts. The findings have
drawn attention to the need to focus on men’s behavior instead of the steady focus on the
victims of prostitution and sex trafficking. Sven Axel Månsson, who for many years has
advocated for more critical evaluation of and action against purchasers of sex acts, believes
this new focus will bring about greater responsibility and accountability for men’s behavior.
In commenting on the Swedish law, which criminalizes the buying of sexual services, he says
there are: “positive consequences of the anonymity around prostitution being broken, with
the client to a great extent being forced to confront the social and human implications of his
actions.”37 He has issued an international call for a “radical reconsideration of men’s
responsibility in prostitution. …Prostitution must be defined as a male issue. Prostitution is
about men’s sexuality, not women’s.”38
Much more research on men as the primary actors in creating a demand for victims is
needed. In Europe, the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities has opened
an inquiry into the consequences of the sex industry in the European Union. Their report for
the European Parliament calls for studies to examine the reasons behind the sexual behavior
of men at the national and European Union level.39
Reorienting society’s approaches to prostitution offers hope to victims, communities, and
even men themselves, for intervention in a destructive activity that violates the dignity and
integrity of individuals, families, and entire nations. New laws, research, and programs as
described in this report, particularly in the U.S. and Sweden, are creating new ways to deal
with age-old problems.
A balanced approach to combating sex trafficking and prostitution requires focusing on both
the supply and the demand side of these problems in both sending and receiving countries. A
comprehensive approach offers the best strategies and likely successful outcomes to
combating this form of slavery.
37
Månsson,. (forthcoming 2004)
Månsson, (forthcoming 2004)
39
Marianne Eriksson (Rapporteur), Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, European
Parliament, “Report on the consequences of the sex industry in the European Union” (20032107OINI).
January 9, 2004.
38
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